The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes
by mcfuz
Summary: There's a reason she braids her hair with the feathers of an eagle. / Piper's life in snapshots, with hints of Jiper.


**The Girl with Kaleidoscope Eyes**

* * *

There's a reason she braids her hair with the feathers of an eagle.

It's winter and she's five years old and her daddy's out at work. He always trusted her - a little too much, everyone else said - and she's alone in the house. She's watched the T.V. but there's nothing interesting on. She doesn't feel like going to bed, but she's tired and can sense her eyelids drooping against her will. So she strips the duvet off the mattress and hustles herself outside, curling up on the back porch to watch the sun go down.

The trees around the yard are tall and brush the sky with their long, green fingertips. She smiles into her quilt, her breath fogging up the dimming air before her face. The world is still, almost waiting for the sun to set, dusk to pass, and for night to finally descend.

She can feel herself beginning to drift off. The breeze cools the tips of her ears, making her comfortably cold, and she snuggles down deeper into her nest. She can hear the traffic sliding past out the front of the house and soon she is soothed to sleep.

And when her daddy comes home, bent and tired with work, and he finds her sitting out back, he lifts her into his arms and carries her inside, stopping just for a moment to stare in wonder at the night sky where three eagles soar overhead.

* * *

Years pass and she's eight years old staring down the barrel of a gun.

Of course, not a loaded gun. Not even a real gun. It's one of those water-sprayers; those toys parents buy because they can't think of what else to get their kid for their birthday.

She's turned bitter. Only last week did she steal her first candy bar from the store: not because her daddy wouldn't buy it for her, but because he _would_. He would buy her a hundred of them if she asked. But she didn't. He wasn't even in the store with her at the time: just stupid Jane, with her stupid shopping list.

It had been so easy. The wrapper was the same colour as her cardigan, easily disguised in her pocket. No one batted an eyelash, especially not the cashier who noticed and was then convinced to let it slide. She was pleased; she'd finally done something for herself, something her daddy would never dream of.

But when she got home, the wrapper was faded like an old newspaper, and the chocolate tasted like ashes in her mouth.

So now she has a gun. And she wishes it were real.

There's a cawing from outside her window. She takes her time in getting there, setting each foot in front of the other with perfect precision, the way she learnt in ballet class a few years ago. When she pulls back the curtains, there's nothing there but the small leaves of ivy that have managed to outgrow the gardener's careful trimming and a faint shadow on the horizon, jumping up and down in her line of vision like the wings of a great bird, pumping and pumping as if to fly as fast as it can away from her.

* * *

And then more years pass and she's eleven and she's blooming in a way she hates.

She gets her dad to buy her oversized flannel shirts and baggy jeans. She salvages one of his old baseball caps and wears it constantly like a helmet to protect her from being hurt. She turns all the mirrors in the house facedown, wondering how long she can get away with it all before her dad notices.

He sees the mirrors the next day and fixes them. He comments on her clothes a week later.

He forgets about the baseball cap.

On the news, there are stories about this kid on the run. Percy Jackson. When she's watching the T.V. and his picture flashes up her heart aches for a moment, because she wishes she were escaping alongside him, two criminals together. Her dad thinks she's interested because the boy's vaguely handsome: his eyes are gentle and deep, sure, and his hair is roguishly messy, but he's just a kid - and so is she - so she doesn't really care about all that. She doesn't tell her dad, though. Better he thinks she's _maturing_ than anything else - than anything worse.

But of course, after a while it's revealed Percy's a hero, that he was misunderstood all along. When she watches the official coverage of this she throws the remote at the television. Her dad pays for a new one in the blink of an eye.

The next day she's lying out on the grass, cap pulled low over her eyes, and thinking about death. An eagle swoops above her, which is strange because they're hardly native around here. She sighs, watching its course as it loops and twists across the sky, calling and calling for something she doesn't understand.

It flies out of sight, but not out of mind. She stays there the rest of the afternoon but it doesn't come back.

* * *

And then she's talking the sales rep into giving her a car and when she's driving off with it her stomach rebels. She pulls over with just enough time to leap out and vomit her guts all over the edge of the highway.

After a few minutes crouched on the ground, panting, she stands and slides into the driver seat, folding her hands along the rough leather of the wheel. A police siren sounds behind her, and she closes her eyes, wanting to make it all go away.

Of course, it doesn't, and as she's loaded into the police cruiser she has there's just enough fading sunlight to see an eagle streak past overhead before the door slams shut and they drive off.

She can't wait to see the look on her dad's face.

* * *

She decides that Leo Valdez belongs in an asylum.

First day of Wilderness School and he's already tried hitting on her, pulled a prank and attempted to make small talk, all in the space of a half hour. She tells him she's not interested, that he's not even remotely funny, and she'd rather jump off a cliff than chat about the weather.

He gets the message, but he doesn't leave her alone. And it's weird, but from then on he's kind of her best friend. Figures. The klepto and the nutcase, a match made in heaven.

On the day of her first pop quiz, she's just sliding into her seat when a miniature bronze eagle is dumped onto her desk. She stares at Leo as he walks to his place behind her, then picks up the gift. It's tiny, made up of cogs and screws and wires, and it's the most beautiful thing she's seen. It sits on her desk all day, and every day after that.

She aces the test. Leo fails miserably. And neither of them cares in the slightest.

* * *

When Jason comes to the school, her world spins faster than it has in a long while. She can see Leo giving her the thumbs up when she attempts to start an awkward conversation, and she blushes to the roots of her hair. Goddamn, Valdez.

The scar on his lip is gorgeous. His eyes are like pale blue mirrors. His hair is spun gold.

She tells herself not to wax lyrical, and that she's being ridiculous.

The next day, the little bronze eagle has a pink bow tied around its neck. She flips Leo the bird.

* * *

She's lying on her back, arms folded beneath her head, breathing in the still-unfamiliar scent of the Aphrodite cabin. It's her second week of head counsellor, and tonight of all nights, when there's an important meeting to attend tomorrow, she just can't get to sleep.

Screw the harpies, she thinks, grabbing the duvet of her bed and heading outside. She wanders down to the beach, settling herself on the sand and wrapping herself up, making a nest. She watches the waves and feels them lap against her toes.

She remembers Percy Jackson.

With startling clarity she recalls being eleven years old and avidly watching the T.V. for any news of Percy's latest criminal escapades. She remembers the feeling of betrayal when she found out he was a good kid all along; she remembers wanting to punch that handsome, tanned face harder than anything she's wanted to punch in her life.

And she remembers the little bronze eagle, small pink bow and all. She thinks of her friends - Leo, Annabeth, Lacy, Mitchell - and of Jason, and of Percy Jackson, lost somewhere on the other side of the country. She thinks of her dad, and of an old baseball cap, and of the first candy bar she stole.

There's a reason she braids her hair with the feathers of an eagle. Because an eagle equals freedom, and that's something she's always longed to have.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I've never liked Piper, but inspiration hit me. Finished my five-hour period of homework for the day, so I thought, why the hell not?


End file.
